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IRAN EXILES REPORT TEHERAN FIRE

This is a digitized version of an article from The Times’s print archive, before the start of online publication in 1996.
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An Iranian exile group in Paris said today that Iranian soldiers protesting Government policies had set fire to a barracks of the Revolutionary Guards in Teheran.

The exile group, Mujahedeen Khalq, said in a telex from its Paris headquarters that the fire had occurred Monday and heavily damaged the Vali Asr barracks.

In Teheran, the office of the commander of the Revolutionary Guards denied the report. Teheran residents said by telephone that they had heard loud explosions, but that officials had offered no explanation.

A man who lives several miles from the barracks said an explosion had shaken his house.

The statement of the Paris exile group said the fire at the barracks had continued for hours. The central building was destroyed and other buildings in the compound sustained heavy damage, the statement said.

On Saturday, the Iranian Government press agency said ammunition had accidentally detonated while being taken inside a garrison compound. It did not identify the garrison. The Paris exile group later said 500 people had been killed or wounded at the Teheran headquarters of the Revolutionary Guards.

The Vali Asr barracks, formerly known as Eshratabad, was one of the first army garrisons to fall to the Islamic revolutionaries in February 1979. When the army of Shah Mohammed Riza Pahlevi surrendered, the barracks gates were opened and the Iranian people were allowed to remove weapons.

A version of this article appears in print on December 31, 1986, on Page A00004 of the National edition with the headline: IRAN EXILES REPORT TEHERAN FIRE. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe